


love in a time of social media

by pratktcven (calciseptine)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Time, Flirting, Fluff, Instagram, M/M, Marijuana, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prosthesis, Self-Esteem Issues, Social Media, Tumblr, Twitter, Underage Drinking, therapy animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 03:26:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10296437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calciseptine/pseuds/pratktcven
Summary: Lance is the king of shitposts and selfies. Shiro is an artist who loves his dog and fatalistic humor. Somehow, they fall in love.





	

They meet online.

Specifically, they meet on tumblr. Shiro is an artist of middling popularity and Lance is a shitposter of the highest caliber. Shiro follows Lance months before Lance follows him; indeed, Lance is unaware of Shiro's work until Shiro @'s him in a small comic.

'I couldn't resist,' Shiro types below the image. 'Thank you for the inspiration, @lances-a-lot.'

Shiro—@white_iron—has a simple art style and a sharp sense of humor that makes Lance laugh out loud. He reblogs the comic, telling his followers to check it out, and proceeds to creep on Shiro's blog. Lance's first stop is Shiro's small about section.

Hello! My name is Shiro. I am a  
post-grad history student and I  
spend my limited free time  
walking my dog or doodling.  
art tag  
doodles  
photography

Shiro's blog consists mainly of his artwork. Occasionally, Shiro will also post real-life pictures of his dog, a beautiful black and white akita with bright eyes and a dopey smile. There aren't any pictures of Shiro himself. Lance—who takes roughly a thousand selfies every day—comments on this oddity to Blue, his enormous gray long-hair.

Blue blinks at him.

"My curiosity has been piqued," Lance replies primly.

Blue blinks her big gold eyes at him again.

"Enough of your judgement!" Lance over-dramatizes. "I can follow who I want!"

Shiro's blog is twenty-four pages of self-produced content that Lance blazes through in less than an hour. There are no reblogs. Lance nearly twitches at the restraint and—after a moment—decides to check if Shiro's likes are public.

"Jackpot!" Lance crows when the page loads.

Shiro's likes are a riot of memes and shit-posts. Art references and how-to's. Nerdy history jokes. Links to academic articles. Male fitspo. Healthy recipes, juice cleanse tips, and over-indulgent foodie pics. NSFW gifs of twinks writhing open-mouthed on rumpled sheets. Pictures of space and nature. Lots of dogs. Several of Lance's selfies. More than one necromancy pun. If it is at all possible to fall in love with someone based on their likes, Lance does it.

Lance's infinite scrolling comes to a halt at half past one, when his one of his many phone alarms notifies him of the time. Lance groans, closes his browser, and hauls his butt out of his narrow bed. It takes him a couple minutes to find an acceptably clean pair of skinny jeans and an unwrinkled sweater; he hasn't done laundry for several weeks.

"After lab," Lance tells Blue as he wriggles out of his worn sweats into his socially acceptable denim. "I'll do a load tonight."

Blue flicks her tail at him, a rude gesture that Lance returns with one of his own. Blue sends him baleful glance.

"Don't look at me like that," Lance says even as he plants a kiss between Blue's mismatched ears. She lost half of her left ear in a fight before the shelter picked her off the street. "You started it."

Blue meows loudly and bats Lance's nose.

"Okay, okay, you're right. I started it." Lance presses one more kiss on his cat's skull. "Have fun bird-watching. I'll see you later."

Then—with his good-byes said—Lance grabs his notebook-laden satchel, and is out the door.

.

Lance's lab is as much of a challenge as it always is. Lance is good at math—numbers and variables are easy—but his brain refuses to wrap around the concepts of physics. It's a small miracle that Pidge is his lab partner; without her, Lance is certain he would fail.

"You're a lifesaver," Lance gushes as they leave the old building. "Let me buy you pizza to show my gratitude."

"I told Matt I'd have dinner with him," says Pidge. "His roommate is going through some sort of clean eating phase and it's driving him nuts."

"He can come," Lance says. Then, less magnanimously, "But he has to get his own slice."

Pidge rolls her eyes as she texts her older brother. Lance shoots a text to Hunk, who responds with a single thumbs up emoji. They all meet at less than ten minutes later at the off-campus pizzeria that sells by the slice. Lance gets three for himself and two for Pidge; Matt, who is the only person over the age of twenty-one, covertly buys a pitcher of beer that they pour into their small, plastic water cups.

"Sweet, sweet, processed goodness," Matt half-cries as he chews, his mouth filled with cheese, pepperoni, and grease. "How I missed you."

Lance would be more sympathetic to Matt's dilemma if the man hadn't embarrassed him in a game of beer pong at a sorority the week before. Lance can't prove it, but he knows in his heart of hearts that Matt cheated. Nobody beats Lance at beer pong, okay. _Nobody._

"That bad?" Pidge grins.

"You have _no_ idea," Matt bemoans. "Like—Takashi's a great dude, don't get me wrong—but when I found him on Craig's List I was more worried about being murdered in my sleep than I was about weird diet habits. Turns out I should have been more worried about the diet habits. Our fridge is filled with kale. Kale, Kit-Kat. _From the farmer's market._ "

"Kale is really good for you," Hunk interjects.

"That's what Takashi said," Matt mutters. "I don't know how much longer I can go on like this."

"Hasn't it only been three days—"

" _An eternity_ —"

Lance laughs at Matt's plight and, once dinner is finished and the four of them part ways, he takes out his phone to tweet about the roundabout retribution.

> **Lance** @lancesalot  
>  #revenge is a dish best served blanched. or in a smoothie. #kale #healthyliving #karma

.

It's a little past nine when Lance returns to his apartment. His roommate, Rolo, and his ambiguously defined girlfriend/partner-in-crime, Nyma, are sitting on the couch sharing a joint. A bag of popcorn is ready on the battered coffee table and the television is playing an old nineties buddy-cop flick.

"Hey," Rolo says, smoke curling upwards from his mouth. "Wanna join?"

"Nah." Lance turns down the proffered joint with a shrug. "Gotta take my laundry down. You feed Blue?"

"Like she'd let me forget."

Blue—who is perched on the windowsill—releases a single, plaintive meow. She has no problems letting anyone know what she wants and when she wants it, especially when it comes to being fed.

"Thanks man."

" _De nada._ "

It doesn't take Lance long to gather his dirty clothing and stuff it into his hamper. He takes it all to the basement, throws a few loads in, and settles into one of the old armchairs that have accumulated in the corner. He knows that he should read ahead for his classes, but the siren song of social media grips him. An internal debate rages inside him for all of three seconds before he opens his tumblr account.

Lance barely feels the twinge of guilt.

There are several asks—all anonymous, as per usual—and one unread message. Lance is a little surprised by the latter; after a few weird encounters, he changed his setting so that he could only receive messages from people he followed. He clicks on the conversation first.

 **white_iron**  
Thanks for the follow! I'm really flattered. You're one of my favorite blogs.

Lance smiles at the message.

 **lances-a-lot**  
no problem!!! ur art was super funny  
i laughed at everything  
pretty sure my cat thinks i'm crazy now

After hitting send, Lance plugs in his chunky headphones into the audio jack. He has a new chillwave playlist that Pidge gave him, but he knows that if he doesn't give Tycho his full attention Pidge may murder him. So instead, Lance pulls up his trusted Rihanna compilation and double clicks on the first song. He bops his head in time with the beat and opens his asks, quickly answering his anons.

Several chart-toppers later, a small ping interrupts Rihanna's plea for the dj to turn the music up. Lance looks at the vertical line of icons on the side of the page and sees that he has another message from Shiro. Lance opens the conversation immediately and reads:

 **white_iron**  
My dog already knows I'm crazy.

**white_iron sent a photo post.**

A small preview image has been loaded into the conversation. It is a cartoon version of Shiro's akita, her expression morphed into one of extreme judgement. Her eyebrows—twin dots of white on her dark face—are low over her big eyes and her ruff is fattened comically around her muzzle. Lance cannot help but laugh at the exaggerated accuracy and immediately reblogs it.

 **lances-a-lot**  
OMG THATS FANTASTIC  
THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT BLUE DOES

 **white_iron**  
Stare into the depths of your decrepit soul and find you wanting?

 **lances-a-lot**  
haha, yes!  
blue acts like i dont spoil her rotten  
shes such a princess

 **white_iron**  
I definitely know how that goes. Bee has three dog beds, but she insists on sleeping in my bed or in my roommate's.

 **lances-a-lot**  
blue has peed in every. single. bed i bought for her  
i stopped trying after awhile  
it was getting to be an expensive exercise in futility

 **white_iron**  
Two words. Dog toys.

Lance talks to Shiro for the next couple of hours while his laundry finishes. Mostly, they swap stories about their pets and commiserate about their less than desirable—if not inadvertently hilarious—behavior. Lance even tells Shiro about how he rescued Blue. In turn, Shiro talks about the process he had to go through to adopt Bee. Shiro mentions that Bee is a service dog; what for, he does not say. 

_Don't be that asshole,_ Lance reminds himself as the topic wanes. _His comfort is more important than your curiosity._

Lance is having such a good time talking to Shiro that he barely notices midnight pass. In fact, if it weren't for the enormous, jaw-cracking yawn that his body produces, Lance would not have noticed at all.

 **lances-a-lot**  
dude  
i just noticed what time it was  
like i could seriously talk about blue forever but  
laundry  
sleep  
ADULTING  
i have calc at 8 am, ugh kill me now

 **white_iron**  
Tell me about it. I have to TA an 8 a.m. class.

There is a small pause. Lance gnaws on his bottom lip as he watches the ellipsis that indicates typing flicker in and out of existence.

 **white_iron**  
Talk to you tomorrow?

Lance bites down harder on his lip. Normally, he would send back a quick affirmation before logging off, but his interaction with Shiro feels different than the interactions he's had in the past. Their chemistry is undeniable and their conversation never felt flat or stilted. Yet while Lance knows he's been lowkey flirting with Shiro, he cannot be sure if Shiro has been flirting back.

 _Fuck it,_ Lance thinks as he gathers all his courage and sets his fingers back on the keyboard. He can feel how warm his cheeks are. _Just do it._

 **lances-a-lot**  
its a date ;)

After he sends the message, Lance closes his laptop and jumps off the armchair. He feels jittery and unsure, yet also oddly hopeful that maybe this time—for the first time—his interest won't be a mistake.

.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on my voltrash blog, [@pratktcven](http://pratktcven.tumblr.com/about)


End file.
